Facebook is a social media network with the most number of users. And because of that, people need tools to better reach their audience.
The company has released a number of updates for video creators and publishers during the International Broadcasting Convention event in Amsterdam, which include features and metrics for Live API, Watch Parties and within its Creator Studio.
All of which can be used by marketers to advance their video efforts.
"The features we’re announcing today were built based on feedback from our community of video creators and publishers," wrote Facebook Product Manager Erin Connolly and Head of Creator and Publisher Experience Jeff Birkeland on the company’s news blog.
First off, is the 'Rehearsals' via Facebook's Live API.
Here, the social giant is making it possible for Page owners to publish Live videos only to the Page Admin and editors. With 'Rehearsals', video creators can to try out new formats and workflows with confidence. This should allow them to see and tailor or tweak their content accordingly, before running the live broadcast.
Then there is the Live video editing and streaming updates.
With the updates, video creators are having more tools for creating Live video, letting them trim the beginning or the end of a Live video.
Facebook is also extending the maximum duration for Live broadcasts through the Live API from 4 hours to 8 hours.
Also using its Live API, Facebook is allowing video creators to broadcast their Facebook Live videos to more than one online streaming service.
“We know that some publishers require longer broadcasting times to accommodate things like sporting events, news days and gaming broadcasts," explained Connolly and Birkeland.
As for Creator Studio, Facebook adds Instagram and IGTV features.
This way, video creators can publish and schedule video contents on both Instagram and Instagram's long-form video IGTV. Here, Facebook is allowing Page owners to schedule their video content to up to 6 months in advance via the Creator Studio.
There is also the Distribution metric within Creator Studio, which measures a video's performance.
"A new Distribution metric…gives a score to each video’s performance based on the Page’s historic average on a range of metrics that drive distribution, such as 1-Minute Views, Average Minutes Watched and Retention."
Not to mention the Watch Party viewership metrics, which allows Pages that host Watch Parties to have two new metrics within Creator Studio: Minutes Viewed and Unique 60s Viewers, and the Loyalty Insights visualization feature, that allows Page owners to get more visualization tools to show Loyalty Insights around video consumption.
“These visuals enable creators to understand which videos their loyal fans want to see so they can create more of them," wrote Connolly and Birkeland.
And interestingly for brands, Facebook also enable Pages to tag their business partners in branded content Watch Parties "so that both parties can see insights on the performance of the Watch Party".
In addition, Facebook is also adding Watch Party replays, which will showcase the video and related discussion generated within the Party, so that people who didn't catch it live can still get the full experience.
And going beyond that, Creator Studio is also adding 13 more languages (Arabic, Chinese, German, Hindi, Italian, Malay, Russian, Tagalog, Tamil, Thai, Turkish, Urdu, and Vietnamese) in its auto-captioning feature for Instagram Feed and IGTV.